Online Commerce, Inter-Regional Retail Trade, and the Evolution of Gravity Effects: Evidence from 20 Billion Transactions

46 Pages Posted: 20 Aug 2020

See all articles by David Bounie

David Bounie

Telecom ParisTech; Télécom Paris

Youssouf Camara

Télécom Paris; Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau

John W. Galbraith

McGill University - Department of Economics; Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organization (CIRANO)

Date Written: June 11, 2020

Abstract

This paper investigates inter-regional retail trade linkages, and changes in the gravity effects between cities and regions arising from online commerce, as opposed to traditional point-of-sale commerce. We build original inter-regional retail trade measures from nearly 20 billion domestic consumer online and in-store transactions made through bank cards, in France 2018-19. We are able to study the mobility of individual bank card holders throughout France, their on-site purchases, and also the locations from which their online purchases were made. We find evidence that online consumer expenditure tends to be more heavily concentrated in the already-large regional economies. This result suggests that the increasing movement toward online purchasing may tend to increase the concentration of overall economic activity, and may have important implications for regional economic development.

Keywords: consumption expenditure, consumer mobility, gravity model, inter-regional trade, e-commerce

Suggested Citation

Bounie, David and Bounie, David and Camara, Youssouf and Galbraith, John W., Online Commerce, Inter-Regional Retail Trade, and the Evolution of Gravity Effects: Evidence from 20 Billion Transactions (June 11, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3624723 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3624723

David Bounie (Contact Author)

Telecom ParisTech ( email )

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+33145817332 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://ses.telecom-paristech.fr/bounie/

Télécom Paris ( email )

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Palaiseau, 91120
France

Youssouf Camara

Télécom Paris ( email )

19 Place Marguerite Perey
Palaiseau, 91120
France

Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau ( email )

Route de Saclay
Palaiseau, 91128
France

John W. Galbraith

McGill University - Department of Economics ( email )

855 Sherbrooke St. W
Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T7
Canada

Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organization (CIRANO) ( email )

2020 rue University, 25th floor
Montreal H3C 3J7, Quebec
Canada

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